Last week I was lucky enough to be able to attend thePASIG 2017 (Preservation and Archiving Special Interest Group) conference, held at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, where over the course of three days the digital preservation community connected to share, experiences, tools, successes and mishaps.

The story of one such mishap came from Eduardo del Valle, Head of the Digitization and Open Access Unit at the University of the Balearic Islands (UIB), in his presentation titled “Sharing my loss to protect your data: A story of unexpected data loss and how to do real preservation”. In 2013 the digitisation and digital preservation workflow pictured below was set up by the IT team at UIB.

Del Valle was told this was a reliable system, with fast retrieval. However, he found this was not the case, with slow retrieval and the only means of organisation consisting of an excel spreadsheet used to contain the storage locations of the data.

In order to assess their situation they used the NDSA Levels of Digital Preservation, a tiered set of recommendations on how organisations should build their digital preservation activities, developed by the National Digital Stewardship Alliance (NDSA) in 2012. The guidelines are organised into five functional areas that lie at the centre of digital preservation:

Storage and geographic location

File fixity and data integrity

Information security

Metadata

File formats

These five areas then have four columns (Levels 1-4) which set tiered recommendations of action, from Level 1 being the least an organisation should do, to Level 4 being the most an organisation can do. You can read the original paper on the NDSA Levels here.

The slide below shows the extent to which the University met the NDSA Levels. They found there was an urgent need for improvement.

NDSA Levels of Preservation UIB compliance (Eduardo del Valle, 2017)

“Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong” – Eduardo del Valle

In 2014 the IT team decided to implement a new back up system. While the installation and configuration of the new backup system (B) was completed, the old system (A) remained operative.

On the 14th and 15th November 2014, a backup was created for the digital material generated during the digitisation of 9 rare books from the 14th century in the Tape Backup System (A) and notably, two confirmation emails were received, verifying the success of the backup. By October 2015, all digital data had been migrated from System (A) to the new System (B), spanning UIB projects from 2008-2014.

However, on 4th November 2014, a loss of data was detected…

The files corresponding to the 9 digitised rare books were lost. This loss was detected a year after the initial back up of the 9 books in System A, and therefore the contract for technical assistance had finished. This meant there was no possibility of obtaining financial compensation, if the loss was due to a hardware or software problem. The loss of these files, unofficially dubbed “the X-files”, meant the loss of three months of work and it’s corresponding economic loss. Furthermore, the rare books were in poor condition, and to digitise them again could cause serious damage. Despite a number of theories, the University is yet to receive an explanation for the loss of data.

The digitised 14th century rare book from UIB collection (Eduardo del Valle, 2017)

To combat issues like this, and to enforce best practice in their digital preservation efforts, the University acquired Libsafe, a digital preservation solution offered by Libnova. Libsafe is OAIS and ISO 14.721:2012 compliant, and encompasses advanced metadata management with a built-in ISAD(g) filter, with the possibility to import any custom metadata schema. Furthermore, Libsafe offers fast delivery, format control, storage of two copies in disparate locations, and a built-in catalogue. With the implementation of a standards compliant workflow, the UIB proceeded to meet all four levels of the 5 areas of the NDSA Levels of Digital Preservation.

The ISO 14.721:2012 Space Data and Information Transfer Systems – Open Archival Information System – Reference Model (OAIS) provides a framework for implementing the archival concepts needed for long-term digital preservation and access, and for describing and comparing architectures and operations of existing and future archives, as well as describing roles, processes and methods for long-term preservation.

The use of these standards facilitates the easy access, discovery and sharing of digital material, as well as their long-term preservation. Del Valle’s story of data loss reminds us of the importance of implementing standards-based practices in our own institutions, to minimise risk and maximise interoperability and access, in order to undertake true digital preservation.

The Oxford University Natural History Museum (photo by Roxana Popistasu, twitter)

This year’s PASIG conference, (Preservation and Archiving Special Interest Group) bought together an eclectic mix of individuals from around the world to discuss the very exciting and constantly evolving topic of digital preservation. Held at the Oxford University Natural History Museum, the conference aimed to connect practitioners from a variety of industries with a view to promoting conversation surrounding various digital preservation experiences, designs and best practices. The presentations given comprised a series of lightning talks, speeches and demos on a variety of themes including: the importance of standards, sustainability and copyright within digital preservation.

UNHCR: Archiving on the Edge

I was particularly moved by a talk given on the third day by Patricia Sleeman, an Archivist working for the UNHCR, a global organisation dedicated to saving lives, protecting rights and building a better future for refugees, forcibly displaced communities and stateless people.

Entitled “Keep your Eyes on the Information” Sleeman’s poignant and thought-provoking presentation discussed the challenges and difficulties faced when undertaking digital preservation in countries devastated by the violence and conflicts of war. Whilst recognising that digital preservation doesn’t immediately save lives in the way that food, water and aid can, Sleeman identified the place of digital preservation as having significant importance in the effort to retain, record and preserve the memory, identity and voice of a people which would otherwise be lost through the destruction and devastation of displacement, war and violence.

About the Archive

Sleeman and her team seek to capture a wide range of digital media including: you tube, websites and social media, each forming a precious snapshot of history, an antidote to the violent acts of mnemnocide- or the destruction of memory.

The digital preservation being undertaken is still in its early stages with focus being given to the creation of good quality captures and metadata. It is hoped in time however that detailed policies and formats will be developed to aid Sleeman in her digital preservation work.

One of the core challenges of this project has been handling highly sensitive material including refugee case files. The preservation of such delicate material has required Sleeman and her team to act slowly and with integrity, respecting the content of information at each stage.

Along with my colleagues, I was incredibly grateful to be at Oxford PASIG 2017, hosted at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History from 11-13 September.

A presentation given by Angeline Takawira, was affirmation indeed as to why advocacy for digital preservation is crucial worldwide. Angeline gave us an insight into the aims and challenges of digital preservation at the United Nations Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals (UN MICT).

The Mechanism

Angeline explained that the purpose of the UN MICT is to continue the mandated and essential actions that have been carried out temporarily by two International Criminal Tribunals: Rwanda (ICTR) from 1993 until 2015 and Yugoslavia (ICTY) since 1994, which will be closing at the end of this year. UN MICT was established in 2010 by the UN Security Council, and is therefore a relatively new organisation. However, like its two predecessors, it is temporary.

We were told about the highly significant and mandated functions of MICT:

To protect and support victims, witnesses and all others affected by war crimes

Digital Preservation at UN MICT

The Mechanism is made up of two branches: The Hague, Netherlands and Arusha, Tanzania, so the single digital repository is maintained across two continents. Currently the digital records of each of these are a hybrid of both digitised and born-digital material with example files including emails, GIS datasets, websites and CAD files. However, the audio-visual files take up 90% in volume of the digital archives combined.

It is so apparent that UN MICT’s preservation goals are aligned to their aims as an organisation as a whole; authenticity is imperative for all of their records. Angeline asserted that their digital preservation goals were to be trustworthy, accessible and useable and ‘demonstrably authentic’ – that is, identical to the digital original in all essential aspects. The digital archive is made up of:

Records relating to the judicial process – for example detentions of the accused and the protection of witnesses

Administrative records of the tribunals as an organisation (and also the Mechanism as an organisation).

Through a range of actions, the development of the digital preservation programme is achieving these aims. Angeline cited the introductions of workflows and compliance with standards, as well as the records being transferred to the repository with an unbroken chain of custody with stringent access controls and fixity checks to ensure no corruption. Furthermore, work continues on defining procedures around migration plans, as the Mechanism wishes to retain an experience of authenticity – which understandably needs a focus on file format characteristics.

Challenges

PASIG definitely taught me that authentic and usable digital preservation is always a trialling undertaking, but the challenges faced when digitally preserving the UN MICT are particularly unique due to its sensitive content and technicalities. For one, the fact that it is a temporary organisation is at odds with the long term endeavour of making these tribunal records accessible for the future and ensuring their protection. A repository transfer as a next step would need extremely critical consideration. Also, the retention schedule of different data is a factor for discussion – so that the UN MICT can fulfil its requirements of deletion in a transparent way.

One of the largest challenges to the future of digital preservation for similar organisations and initiatives, there is limited financial sustainability, resources and staff in order to sustain the long term commitment that digital preservation of records like this really command.

Use

There is no doubt that the digital archive of the UN MICT would be of fundamental significance to an international user community of the global media, legal professionals, academics, researchers and all education in general. Combine these user groups with the broad range of stakeholders in preserving the Mechanism: the international courts, the security council who gave the mandated the work, there are many to whom this cause, and the information it preserves, will be vital to. I have visited 4 countries of former Yugoslavia and the digital records of the MICT are surely equally as compulsory to preserve and learn from as the physical and tangible evidence of conflict. The need for advocacy of digital preservation is pertinent, and the UN MICT are doing urgent work.

The theme for the ARA Annual Conference 2017 is: ‘Challenge the Past, Set the Agenda’. I was fortunate enough to attend a pre-conference workshop in Manchester, ran by Lori Donovan and Maria Praetzellis from The Internet Archive, about the bountiful harvest that is web content, and the technology, tools and features that enable web archivists to overcome the challenges it presents.

Part I – Collections, Community and Challenges

Lori gave us an insight into the use cases of Archive-it partner organisations to show us the breadth of reasons why other institutions archive the web. The creation of a web collection can be for one of (or indeed, all) the following reasons:

To maintain institutional history

To document social commentary and the perspectives of users

To capture spontaneous events

To augment physical holdings

Responsibility: Some documents are ONLY digital. For example, if a repository upholds a role to maintain all published records, a website can be moved into the realm of publication material.

When asked about duplication amongst web archives, and whether it was a problem if two different organisations archive the same web content, Lori put forward the argument that duplication is not worrisome. The more captures of a website is good for long term preservation in general – in some cases organisations can work together on collaborative collecting if the collection scope is appropriate.

Ultimately, the priority of crawling and capturing a site is to recreate the same experience a user would have if they were to visit the live site on the day it was archived. Combining this with an appropriate archive frequency means that change over time can also be preserved. This is hugely important: the ephemeral nature of internet content is widely attested to. Thankfully, the misconception that ‘online content will be around forever’ is being confronted. Lori put forward some examples to illustrate the point for why the archiving of websites is crucial.

In general, a typical website lasts 90-100 days before one of the following happens:

The content changes

The site URL moves

The content disappears completely

A study was carried out on the Occupy Movement sites archived in 2012. Of 582 archived sites, only 41% were still live on the web as of April 2014. (Lori Donovan)

Furthermore, we were told about a 2014 study which concluded that 70% of scholarly articles online with text citations suffered from reference rot over time. This speaks volumes about preserving copies in order for both authentication and academic integrity.

The challenge continues…

Lori also pointed us to the NDSA 2016/2017 survey which outlines the principle concerns within web archiving currently: Social media, (70%); Video, (69%) and Interactive media and Databases, (both 62%). Any dynamic content can be difficult to capture and curate, therefore sharing advice and guidelines amongst leaders in the web archiving community is a key factor in determining successful practice for both current web archivists, and those of future generations.

Part II – Current and Future Agenda

Maria then talked us through some key tools and features which enable greater crawling technology, higher quality captures and the preservation of web archives for access and use:

Brozzler. Definitely my new favourite portmanteau (browser + crawler = brozzler!), brozzler is the newly developed crawler by The Internet Archive which is replacing the combination of heritrix and umbra crawlers. Brozzler captures http traffic as it is loaded, works with YouTube in order to improve media capture and the data will be immediately written and saved as a WARC file. Also, brozzler uses a real browser to fetch pages, which enables it to capture embedded urls and extract links.

WARC. A Web ARChive file format is the ISO standard for web archives. It is a concatenated file written by a crawler, with long term storage and preservation specifically in mind. However, Maria pointed out to us that WARC files are not constructed to easily enable research (more on this below.).

Elasticsearch. The full-text search system does not just search the html content displayed on the web pages, it searches PDF, Word and other text-based documents.

solr. A metadata-only search tool. Metadata can be added on Archive-it at collection, seed and document level.

Supporting researchers now and in the future

The tangible experience and use of web archives where a site can be navigated as if it was live can shed so much light on the political and social climate of its time of capture. Yet, Maria explained that the raw captured data, rather than just the replay, is obviously a rich area for potential research and, if handled correctly, is an inappropriable research tool.

As well as the use of Brozzler as a new crawling technology, Archive-it research services offer a set of derivative data-set files which are less complex than WARC and allow for data analysis and research. One of these derivative data sets is a Longitudinal Graph Analysis (LGA) dataset file which will allow the researcher to analyse the trend in links between urls over time within an entire web collection.

Maria acknowledged that there are lessons to be learnt when supporting researchers using web archives, including technical proficiency training and reference resources. The typology of the researchers who use web archives is ever growing: social and political scientists, digital humanities disciplines, computer science and documentary and evidence based research including legal discovery.

What Lori and Maria both made clear throughout the workshop was that the development and growth of web archiving is integral to challenging the past and preserving access on a long term scale. I really appreciated an insight into how the life cycle of web archiving is a continual process, from creating a collection, through to research services, whilst simultaneously managing the workflow of curation.

When in Manchester…

Virtual Archive, Central Library, Manchester

I couldn’t leave Manchester without exploring the John Rylands Library and Manchester’s Central Library. In the latter, this interactive digital representation of a physical archive combined choosing a box from how a physical archive may be arranged, and then projected the digitised content onto the screen once selected. A few streets away in Deansgate I had just enough time in John Rylands to learn that the fear of beards is called Pogonophobia. Go and visit yourself to learn more!

Anna Oates (MSLIS Candidate, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and NDNP Coordinator Graduate Assistant, Preservation Services) explaining the differences between PDF and PDF/A

We were excited to attend the recent project presentation entitled: ‘A Case Study on Theses in Oxford’s Institutional Repository: Challenges Meeting the ISO 19005 Standard’ given by Anna Oates, a student involved in the Oxford-Illinois Digital Libraries Placement Programme.

The presentation focused initially on the PDF/A format: PDF/A differs from standard PDF in that it avoids common long term access issues associated with PDF. For example, a PDF created today may look and behave differently in 50 years time. This is because many visual aspects of the PDF are not saved into the file itself, (for example, PDFs may use font linking instead of font embedding) the standardised PDF/A format attempts to remedy this by embedding metadata within the file and restricting certain aspects commonly found in PDF which could inhibit long term preservation.

Aspects excluded from PDF/A include :

Audio and video content

JavaScript executable files

All forms of PDF encryption

PDF/A is better suited therefore for the long term preservation of digital material as it maintains the integrity of the information included in the source files, be this textual or visual. Oates described PDF/A as having multiple ‘flavours’, PDF/A-1 published in 2005 including conformance level A (Accessible – maintains the structure of the file) and B (Basic – maintains the visual aspects only). Versions 2 and 3 published later in 2011 and 2012, were developed to encompass conformance level U (Unicode – enabling the embedding of Unicode information) alongside other features such as JPEG 2000 compression and the embedding of arbitrary file formats within PDF/A documents.

Oates specified that different types of documents benefited from different ‘flavours’ of PDF/A, for example, digitised documents were better suited to conformance level B whereas born digital documents were better suited to level A.

Whilst specifying the benefits of PDF/A, Oates also highlighted the myriad of issues associated with the format. Firstly, while experimenting with creating and conforming PDF/A documents, she noted the conformed documents had slight differences, such as changes to the colour pixels of embedded image files (PDF/A format showed less difference in the colour of pixels with programs like PDF Studio), this showcased a clear alteration of the authenticity of the original source file.

Secondly, Oates noted that when converting files from PDF to PDF/A-1b,smart software would change the decode filter of the image (e.g. changing from JPXDecode used for JPEG2000 to DCTDecode accepted by ISO 19005) in order to ensure it would conform to ISO 19005. However, she noted that despite the positives of avoiding non-conformance the software had increased the file size of the PDF by 65%. The file size increase poses obvious issues in regards to storage and cost considerations for organisations using PDF/A.

Oates’ workflow for creation and conformance checking of PDF/A files using different PDF/A software

Format uptake was also discussed by Oates. She found that PDF/A had not been widely utilised by Universities for long term preservation of dissertations and thesis in the UK. However, Oates provided examples of users of PDF/A for Electronic Theses and Dissertations Repositories that included: Concordia University, Johns Hopkins University, McGill University, Rutgers University, University of Alberta, University of Oulu and Virginia Tech. Alongside this it was mentioned that uptake amongst Research and Cultural Heritage Institutions included: the Archaeology Data Service (ADS),British Library, California Digital Library, Data Archiving and Networked Services (DANS), the Library of Congress and the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA).

“Adobe Preflight has failed to recognize most of the glyph errors. As such, veraPDF will remain our final tool for validation.” (Anna Oates)

Oates therefore concluded that PDF/A was not the best solution to PDF preservation, she mentioned that the new ISO standard would cause new issues and considerations for PDF/A users.

Following the presentation the audience debated whether PDF/A should still be used. Some considered whether other solutions existed to PDF preservation; an example of a proposed solution was to keep both PDF/A and the original PDFs. However, many still felt that PDF/A provided the best solution available despite its various drawbacks.

Hopefully Oates’ findings will highlight the various areas needed for improvement in both PDF/A conversion/ validation software and conformance aspects of the ISO 19005 Standard used by PDF/A to ensure it is up to the task of digital preservation.

The aim of the briefing day was two-fold; to introduce and review the work of the task force thus far in identifying emerging technical frameworks for email management, preservation and access; and to discuss more broadly the technical underpinnings of email preservation and the associated challenges, utilising a series of case studies to illustrate good practice frameworks.

The day started with an introductory talk from Kate Murray (Library of Congress) and Chris Prom (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign), who explained the goals of the task force in the context of emails as cultural documents, which are worthy of preservation. They noted that email is a habitat where we live a large portion of our lives, encompassing both work and personal. Furthermore, when looking at the terminology, they acknowledged email is an object, several objects and a verb – and it’s multi-faceted nature all adds to the complexity of preserving email. Ultimately, it was said email is a transactional process whereby a sender transmits a message to a recipient, and from a technical perspective, a protocol that defines a series of commands and responses that operate in a manner like a computer programming language and which permits email processes to occur.

From this standpoint, several challenges of email preservation were highlighted:

Capture: building trust with donors, aggregating data, creating workflows and using tools

Ensuring authenticity: ensuring no part of the email (envelope, header, and message data etc.) have been tampered with

Preserving attachments and linked/networked documents: can these be saved and do we have the resources?

Tool interoperability

The first case study of the day was presented by Jonathan Pledge from the British Library on “Collecting Email Archives”, who explained born-digital research began at the British Library in 2000, and many of their born-digital archives contain email. The presentation was particularly interesting as it included their workflow for forensic capture, processing and delivery of email for preservation, providing a current and real life insight into how email archives are being handled. The British Library use Aid4Mail Forensic for their processing and delivery, however, are looking into ePADD as a more holistic approach. ePADD is a software package developed by Standford University which supports archival processes around the appraisal, ingest, processing, discovery and delivery of email archives. Some of the challenges they experienced surrounded the issue of email as often containing personal information. A possible solution would be the redaction of offending material, however they noted this could lead to the loss of meaning, as well as being an extremely time-consuming process.

Next we heard from Anthea Seles (The National Archives) and Greg Falconer (UK Government Cabinet Office) who spoke about email and the record of government. Their presentation focused on the question of where the challenge truly lies for email – suggesting that, opposed to issues of preservation, the challenge lies in capture and presentation. They noted that when coming from a government or institutional perspective, the amount of email created increases hugely, leaving large collections of unstructured records. In terms of capture, this leads to the challenge of identifying what is of value and what is sensitive. Following this, the major challenge is how to best present emails to users – discoverability and accessibility. This includes issues of remapping existing relationships between unstructured records, and again, the issue of how to deal with linked and networked content.

The third and final case study was given by Michael Hope, from Preservica; an “Active Preservation” technology, providing a suite of (Open Archival Information System) compliant workflows for ingest, data management, storage, access, administration and preservation for digital archives.

Following the case studies, there was a second talk from Kate Murray and Chris Prom on emerging Email Task Force themes and their Technology Roadmap. In June 2017 the task force released a Consultation Report Draft of their findings so far, to enable review, discussion and feedback, and the remainder of their presentation focused on the contents and gaps of the draft report. They talked about three possible preservation approaches:

Format Migration: copying data from one type of format to another to ensure continued access

Emulation: recreating user experience for both message and attachments in the original context

Bit Level Preservation: preservation of the file, as it was submitted (may be appropriate for closed collections)

They noted that there are many tools within the cultural heritage domain designed for interoperability, scalability, preservation and access in mind, yet these are still developing and improving. Finally, we discussed what the possible gaps of the draft report, and issues such as the authenticity of email collections were raised, as well as a general interest in the differing workflows between institutions. Ultimately, I had a great time at The National Archives for the Email Preservation: How Hard Can it Be? Briefing Day – I learnt a lot about the various challenges of email preservation, and am looking forward to seeing further developments and solutions in the near future.

Recent months have brought an unprecedented interest in Ge’ez manuscripts of Ethiopia and Eritrea – a development that we welcome at the Bodleian. Study of this material has reached a new level, with further palaeographical and codicological knowledge, as well as a growing appreciation of art history. Studying, displaying, and digitising a variety of our little-known codices and scrolls with modern means help us better understand and disseminate our findings to new audiences.
With this in mind, on Saturday, the 17th of June we welcomed a small group of Ethiopians and Eritreans at the Bodleian to view a selection of Ge’ez manuscripts of Ethiopia and Eritrea. The material, which was studied and discussed with great excitement, included a magic scroll with miniatures of angels and demons, an illuminated seventeenth-century prayer book, fragments of a medieval gospel with evangelists’ portraits, a hagiographic work with copious illustrations to the text, an important textual variant of the Book of Enoch and the epic work Kebra Nagast (Glory of the Kings).
The experience of the day was that of beautiful exchange of ideas, as well as building bridges within and between communities. We look forward to future developments!

This year, the world of web archiving saw a premiere: not only were the biennial RESAW conference and the IIPC conference, established in 2016, held jointly for the first time, but they also formed part of a whole week of workshops, talks and public events around web archives – Web Archiving Week 2017 (or #WAWeek2017 for the social medially inclined).

After previous conferences Reykjavik (2016) and Arhus (RESAW 2015), the big 2017 event was held in London, 14-16 June 2017, organised jointly by the School of Advanced Studies of the University of London, the IIPC and the British Library.
The programme was packed full of an eclectic variety of presentations and discussions, with topics ranging from the theory and practice of curating web archive collections or capturing whole national web domains, via technical topics such as preservation strategies, software architecture and data management, to the development of methodologies and tools for using web archives based research and case studies of their application.

Even in digital times, who doesn’t like a conference pack? Of course, the full programme is also available online. (…but which version will be easier to archive?)

From the 14th – 16th of June researchers and practitioners from a global community came together for a series of talks, presentations and workshops on the subject of Web Archiving at the IIPC Web Archiving Conference. This event coincided with Web Archiving Week 2017, a week long event running from 12th – 16th June hosted by the British Library and the School of Advance Study

I was lucky enough to attend the conference on the 15th June with a fellow trainee digital archivist and listen to some thoughtful, engaging and challenging talks.

The day started with a plenary in which John Sheridan, Digital Director of the National Archives, spoke about the work of the National Archives and the challenges and approaches to Web Archiving they have taken. The National Archives is principally the archive of the government, it allows us to see what the state saw through the state’s eyes. Archiving government websites is a crucial part of this record keeping as we move further into the digital age where records are increasingly born-digital. A number of points were made which highlighted the motivations behind web archiving at the National Archives.

They care about the records that government are publishing and their primary function is to preserve the records

Accountability for government services online or information they publish

Capturing both the context and content

By preserving what the government publishes online it can be held accountable, accountability is one aspect that demonstrates the inherent value of archiving the web. You can find a great blog post on accountability and digital services by Richard Pope in this link. http://blog.memespring.co.uk/2016/11/23/oscon-2016/

The published records and content on the internet provides valuable and crucial context for the records that are unpublished, it links the backstory and the published records. This allows for a greater understanding and analysis of the information and will be vital for researchers and historians now and into the future.

Quality assurance is a high priority at the National Archives. By having a narrow focus of crawling, it has allowed for but also prompted a lot of effort to be directed into the quality of the archived material so it has a high fidelity in playback. To keep these high standards it can take weeks in order to have a really good in-depth crawl. Having a small curated collection it is an incentive to work harder on capture.

The users and their needs were also discussed as this often shapes the way the data is collected, packaged and delivered.

Users want to substantiate a point. They use the archived sites for citation on Facebook or Twitter for example

The need to cite for a writer or researcher

Legal – What was the government stance or law at the time of my clients case

Researchers needs – This was highlighted as an area where improvements can be made

Government itself are using the archives for information purposes

Government websites requesting crawls before their website closes – An example of this is the NHS website transferring to a GOV.UK site

The last part of the talk focused on the future of web archiving and how this might take shape at the National Archives. Web archiving is complex and at times chaotic. Traditional archiving standards have been placed upon it in an attempt to order the records. It was a natural evolution for information managers and archivists to use the existing knowledge, skills and standards to bring this information under control. This has resulted in difficulties in searching across web archives, describing the content and structuring the information. The nature of the internet and the way in which the information is created means that uncertainty has to inevitably be embraced. Digital Archiving could take the turn into the 2.0, the second generation and move away from the traditional standards and embrace new standards and concepts. One proposed method is the ICA Records in Context conceptual model. It proposes a multidimensional description with each ‘ thing ‘ having a unique description as opposed to the traditional unit of description (one size fits all). Instead of a single hierarchical fonds down approach, the Records in Context model uses a description that can be formed as a network or graph. The context of the fonds is broader, linking between other collections and records to give different perspectives and views. The records can be enriched this way and provide a fuller picture of the record/archive. The web produces content that is in a constant state of flux and a system of description that can grow and morph over time, creating new links and context would be a fruitful addition.

Visual Diagram of How the Records in Context Conceptual Model works

“This example shows some information about P.G.F. Leveau a French public notary in the 19th century including: • data from the Archives nationales de France (ANF) (in blue); and • data from a local archival institution, the Archives départementales du Cher (in yellow).” INTERNATIONAL COUNCIL ON ARCHIVES: RECORDS IN CONTEXTS A CONCEPTUAL MODEL FOR ARCHIVAL DESCRIPTION.p.93

Traditional Fonds Level Description

I really enjoyed the conference as a whole and the talk by John Sheridan. I learnt a lot about the National Archives approach to web archiving, the challenges and where the future of web archiving might go. I’m looking forward to taking this new knowledge and applying it to the web archiving work I do here at the Bodleian.

Changes are currently being made to the National Archives Web Archiving site and it will relaunch on the 1st July this year. Why don’t you go and check it out.

How have relief and development organizations competed and collaborated to mitigate suffering from conflicts?

Is political neutrality feasible or necessary?

These and other questions will be addressed in the symposium, ‘War, Health and Humanitarianism’ on 16 June in the Weston Library Lecture Theatre, which brings together historians studying conflicts from the medieval period to the present day. Speakers will include Dr. Rosemary Wall, Bodleian Library Sassoon Visiting Fellow and Senior Lecturer in Global History at the University of Hull, whose current research focuses on conflict in Cyprus, Vietnam and Nigeria in the 20th century and British and French humanitarian responses.